Strategic Management for Oxfam GB - Assignment Example

Running Head: Oxfam GB Strategic Management Plan for Oxfam GB [Client’s Name] [Affiliation] Table of Contents Cover Page ……………………………….. Executive Summary ……………………. Table of Contents ………………………. Introduction ……………………………… Brief Background of Oxfam GB ……… Present Issues of Oxfam GB ………… Strategic Plan for Oxfam GB ………… Recommendation ……………………… Introduction Organizations of any kind employ strategic planning whenever they engage in projects, measure their performance, or simply asses their strengths and weaknesses relative to the internal and external factors that the organization constantly considers in its operations (Salas et al, 2004). Non-profit organizations work pretty much the same as for-profit organizations since the only difference between the two of them is the other’s thrust towards profits. This means that like for-profit organizations, non-profit organizations also have planning, implementation, and management concerns that needs to be addressed (Childs, 1975). Thus, nonprofit organizations also look at the strategic planning process whenever they have projects that must be done or whenever they want to assess their position in the market. According to Alliance for Non-Profit Management (2004), a non-profit organization use strategic plan to guide an organization in achieving its goals, ensure that every person within the organization work together towards the achievement of the organization’s goals, and to assess the current condition of the organization and measure its relative distance from its intended goals. Strategic plans help organizations see its future and predict the steps it has to make, the people it needs to employ, and the resources it needs to expel (McNamara, 2007). This report focuses on the objective assessment of Oxfam GB, a non-profit organization; determine some areas where there are issues, and propose some changes to the existing management processes that are directly or indirectly responsible for these issues. Brief Background of Oxfam GB Oxfam is a short term for Oxford Committee for Famine Relief. The group started in 1942 as it campaigned for food and other supplies to be sent through a naval blockade in Greece to reach the starving women, children, and elderly persons during the Second World War. Oxfam has played major roles in the delivery of emergency relief programs and the promotion of sustainable long-term development programs that have helped vulnerable communities across the globe. The organization as a whole also took part in the abolishment of unfair trade, in the promotion of better health and access to education, peace and security, agriculture, and in the promotion of a clean and green global environment. Oxfam GB is a part of the international group of thirteen non-profit non-government organizations that shares the same passion – to end famine and poverty in the whole world. Like all Oxfam foundations all over the world, Oxfam GB focused its functions and operations on development, policy research, advocacies, campaigning, and emergency relief programs. Oxfam GB offers aid and help to ailing communities outside Britain, played important roles in the global plight to end poverty, and offer scholarship programs to international students on policy research and public management programs offered in local and British schools. Presently, Oxford GB’s social functions overlap that of United Nations and Oxfam International. This means that corporate partners and individual sponsors have plenty of non-profit social organizations to choose from. In addition to that, Oxfam GB’s functions have become too diverse to focus on lowering the global famine as the organization slowly but more intensely focus its efforts and resources on deterring the effects of global warming. This report focuses on the strategic direction of Oxfam GB, the issues associated with the current strategic direction, and the possible steps the organization can make in order to increase public and private partnership to aid in achieving its goals. Present Issues of Oxfam GB The strategic issues experienced by Oxfam GB are interrelated with each other. Two of these related issues are (a) the diversity of the organization’s activities which results in (b) significant decrease of support acquired by the organization in terms of funds and manpower, (c) the overlap of the organization’s functions to other non-profit socio-civic organizations like UNICEF, WWF, and other agencies of the government which again results to (b), and (d) the organization’s lack of innovative and strategic steps to increase its scope of activities as well as the organization’s lack of recent significant involvement in putting a stop to the world’s famine. With the present global economic condition, the decline of the financial support Oxfam GB is experiencing became apparent now more than ever. Oxfam International has always been involved in making an effort to decrease the world’s hunger through advocacy, policy research, the delivery of emergency relief programs, and promotion of communal involvement to support peace and order as well as fight against the spread of global warming by collaborating with government agencies and non-government institutions that has direct and indirect influence on these issues. Oxfam Great Britain, as a part of a bigger movement, has limited the scope of its function into (a) a support organization for Oxfam International in terms of funding and manpower, (b) restrained most of its efforts on the achievement of Oxfam International’s need for funds and manpower, and (c) currently limiting its influence on Britain’s goal to make positive impact to the environment. Because of the organization’s lack of focus to its intended goals and functions, the support on its funds and finances have significantly declined over the years. The rapid increase of the scope of operation of Oxfam International leaves national wings of the organization acting as a support group rather than the core group. As Oxfam International has involved itself in the plight to end the poverty in Africa and other parts of the world; as the international organization has involved itself in the plight to stabilize peace and order in war torn areas; as the organization as a whole include environmental concern among its core concerns, national organization are tasked to become the support group of the international thrust, thus making Oxfam GB a tool for fund raising and the need to come up with volunteers for its international focus. While there should be no concerns over the stability and longevity of Oxford GB given the nature of the shift of effort, the organization has noticed significant decline in the support it gets from its public and private followers. With the present global economic issues and with the ever increasing poverty, instability of sociopolitical security, and the increasing number of people becoming hungry, Oxfam GB needs to make strategic moves to increase its funds to address and stop these issues. Strategic Plan for Oxfam GB Oxfam GB is active in public policy researches (Oxfam, 2003; PANE, 2006; Arita, 2008) although there are no information shared to the public about any internal strategic planning and management researches done for the organization. The absence of any strategic planning process done on the organization explains the organization’s gradual lose of its focus on its goals and objectives. In this regards, strategic planning process must be employed on the organization to address the issues it faced, as discuss in the previous section. The strategic planning process for Oxfam GB will be used to redirect the organization towards its goals, increase the intensity of its strengths, reinforce and correct the identified weaknesses of the organization, reposition Oxfam GB to meet the challenges amidst global economic issues, and propose necessary changes for the organization to meet its current and future goals and objectives. Even non-profit organizations need to strategize all its future actions, budget allocations, and decisions in an environment that constantly changes (Lyddon, 1999). Because of the numerous factors in the future that are difficult to anticipate, non-profit organizations must allow themselves a lot of legroom to avoid unnecessary wastage in time and effort that these uncertainties may bring. Thus, non-profit organizations must come up with a good strategic plan that takes into consideration all factors that may affect its stability in the future (Richardson, 2004; Mowday & Sutton, 1993)). Because of the similarity of the approaches done on for-profit organizations (i.e., businesses) and non-profit organizations (i.e., foundations), it is just logical for the later to use the common strategic planning method used in businesses (Ostaf, n.d), varying on the areas where a deeper focus is particularly needed based on the nature of the function of the organization. Nonprofit organizations, unlike for-profit organizations, do not plan to stall competitors, maneuver stints so that they could gather and dominate the greater market share, or project their success in millions of dollars of revenue but rather focus on how to gather funds, keep the trusts of donors, and fulfill their advocacy – something that definitely requires a lot of planning. Because there are a lot of choices to be made by nonprofit organizations to answer typically the same set of questions that for-profit organizations has have in order to move forward, nonprofit strategic plans must include all aspects that needs to be addressed but has been bounded by the definition and restrictions of being a nonprofit organization. Simply put, nonprofit organizations must employ nonprofit strategic planning and to be able to plan ahead, execute the plan, and stay afloat in the next ten or twenty years to serve its advocacies. Conclusion and Recommendation Oxfam GB is a stable, well managed organization. It has already made significant contribution to the betterment of the society in the last few decades because of its strong commitment to social change. However, the internal capabilities of the organization are no longer compatible with the external or environmental issues it needs to face; hence, the need to change. A good strategic plan for Oxfam GB must be able to address the key areas identified earlier as well as include the following suggested steps for the organization to effectively plan its strategic moves. To wit: 1. A list of the issues the organization face, based on their level of priority and based on their relationship with each other. If an organization can be able to sort out the issues it face according to the potential impacts and risks they might bring, the organization will be able to handle them accordingly. By working on the more important ones, the organization can effectively and efficiently employ its time and effort to address these issues. Related issues with related solutions can be grouped together before actual plans are created and actual implementations are made. 2. Identification of the key people involved in the strategic planning, implementation, and management process. Every area or process of concern affects the functions and operations of groups and individuals (Knoster et al, 2000). If these groups and individuals are identified at an early stage, assigning new job functions and work-related roles as the change demands becomes easier compared to planning organizational changes without taking into consideration this important aspect. By including the key people, the changes that are to be implemented can be broken down into smaller segments and thus, massive changes in the organization becomes manageable. More importantly, involving individuals and groups in the proposed strategic planning, implementation, and management creates shared responsibility within the organization, making the change more effective. 3. Definition of the timeline. Defining the length of each process would give the organization a sense of urgency in doing what needs to be done compared to projects with indefinite timeline (Pyor et al, 2009). Because strategic plans are created to address immediate concerns, taking a long time for planning, implementation, and management may no longer be applicable to the need for change (PDP, 2006). Thus, creating a reasonable timeline would help organizations streamline its planning process and compress all resources, effort, and people within the timeline provided. 4. The most important is that nonprofit strategic plans must be able to address the needs of its stakeholders (Mittenhal, 2002). A stakeholder is a term to describe any organization or individual that has a direct interest in any actions or decisions made by certain individuals or organizations. Their interest may be because they will have a role in implementing the decisions, or because they will be affected directly or indirectly by the decision. 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